This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.

Facebook Acquires CrowdTangle (Read more at The Verge)

Facebook has acquired CrowdTangle, a tool used by multiple companies to understand how and what content spreads across the web, as well as what doesn’t. The tool is being used by the likes of BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, ESPN, USA Today, CNN and others, including brands.

The details of the deal were not disclosed, but its data could be leveraged by publishers turning to Facebook to help distribute their content.

Facebook’s been a huge proponent of having publishers share their content on its platform, primarily through Instant Articles. CrowdTangle will join existing tools like Signal, which Facebook provides to help publishers see what stories are trending. This will provide more transparency in what content’s working and why. That’s a value add as publishers are constantly grappling with the pros and cons of publishing to Facebook, since Facebook ultimately owns the data and the platform.

That being said, publishers are still able to monetize the content they publish on Facebook, so this tool can be used to help them create more content that drives more eyeballs and ultimately, more revenue.

Snapchat and Foursquare Ink Deal (Read more at AdWeek)

Foursquare and Snapchat have entered a deal that will have Foursquare be the geographic data source behind Snapchat geofilters as well as where Snapchat serves ads. This deal allows Snapchat to offer more targeted and more specific parameters for advertisers using its geofilters. Previously, Snapchat relied on its own data for this, but now advertisers can target specific store locations versus broader areas.

Foursquare’s location data is incredibly strong, and it’s been able to sell access to that data to other businesses, including Uber, Twitter, Apple and others.

This is a great deal for Foursquare, but it also helps Snapchat, which will be able to offer a more robust data set for marketers, something marketers have been demanding from their Snapchat partnerships.

Pinterest Launches Autoplay Video and Explore Hub (Read more at AdAge)

Pinterest just launched auto-play Promoted Video, video ads containing featured pins. The format is in testing with select brands, including American Express and The Home Depot. This comes about three months after launching Promoted Video.

Now, Pinterest is looking to have the videos start playing as soon as a user views it. Beyond that, advertisers can create playlists of videos, so when one video explaining an idea is done, another starts playing.

Along with that, Pinterest’s new video-focused hub, Explore, launched this week with content from BuzzFeed, TasteMade, Food Network, HGTV and others. The hub offers video content along with video ads, similar to Snapchat’s Discover platform, which curates premium content from publishers and surrounds it with ads. No details have been revealed on the revenue model. Pinterest sees this as a big step into video.

Pinterest is really looking to capitalize on discovery. And that’s what Explore aims to do, curate original content from publishers for users to discover new ideas through. But it also creates a prime spot to deliver video ads, which could be lucrative for Pinterest should they prove successful. And for brands that want to share tips, how-to’s and information that enriches the Pinterest experience, they’ll likely be successful.

There was a time when autoplay would be frowned upon, but thanks to Facebook, that’s clearly changed.

Twitter Implements Moderation Controls (Read more at AdWeek)

Twitter’s had no shortage of criticism thrown at it because of its issues with online harassment, and the platform aims to change that with some new features. Users can now mute accounts, keywords, phrases and specific conversations. Those conversations still live on Twitter, but if they are a muted by a user, that user won’t see them.

Beyond that Twitter’s making reporting bad content easier even if you aren’t the victim. It’s also retrained its support team, emphasizing “cultural and historical contextualization of hateful content, and implemented an ongoing refresher program.”

This is one of the first significant moves that I can see actually doing something to curb the abuse seen on Twitter. As Twitter admits, this won’t suddenly remove abusive content, but implementing tools, learning from those efforts and rapidly adapting will get us closer to a solution. After all, the best way to handle a troll is to ignore it, and if you can mute it, it’s that much easier. A good portion of Twitter’s future really hangs in the balance with this effort. If it continues to be a cesspool for hate, new users won’t sign up and current users will stop using it.

Facebook Updating Measurement (Read more at AdWeek)

Facebook’s been under scrutiny for some botched measurement practices, and Facebook has announced updates to, hopefully, improve on that.

First, it now has a new metric called “video watches to 100 percent” that will track completed views and completed views with audio. This is meant to help clarify video measurement, so advertisers will have a better understanding of how their content is performing.

Second, Facebook is partnering with comScore and Nielson to offer third-party view ability. These two, in addition to Moat and Integral Ad Science will measure text and photo ads as well as video viewability, including how long ads appeared on a page and when. This will not affect how advertisers are charged for advertising.

This comes at a time when Facebook is under pressure to be more transparent in measurement.It’s run into issues, finding a bug that miscalculated organic daily reach for pages, which were counting multiple visits to the same Page by the same people again and again. Now, repeat visitors will be factored out.

It also now has stricter viewability guidelines than it did before. The new guidelines will be based on viewability and not when someone refreshes the news feed and an ad is placed in the feed. This may lead to as much as a 20% dip in reach for advertisers.

In addition to that, it admits it’s overestimated average time spent with Instant Articles by 7% to 8% since August.

To wrap everything up, Facebook now has a measurement council that will regularly evaluate measurement issues and make recommendations. It will also have a Metrics FYI bog that will highlight changes in Facebook measurement.

These are obviously good changes, but they come at a time when Facebook’s made several mistakes. It’s not going to change advertisers’ investment in Facebook, but it certainly impacts trust, which third-party verification will help with.

News Quick Hits

Facebook and Google are taking steps to separate themselves from fake news sites. Google has pulled its advertising tool from sites that run what it calls “misrepresentative content,” and for its part, Facebook will not display ads on apps or sites that are illegal, misleading or deceptive. Google’s advertising is a primary source for revenue for websites, so this could be a significant move. (Read more at AdAge)
Thanks to an update to Facebook’s Pages app, community managers now have a one-stop app to manage a brand’s Facebook, Instagram and Messenger accounts. The updated feature is called universal inbox, and it’s meant to allow community managers to manage communication across all three platforms in one place. Previously, those managers had to open separate apps to manage a brand’s presence across platforms. (Read more at TechCrunch)
Facebook is in the process of testing a streamlined update composer for Facebook Pages. The update asks community managers what they hope to achieve with the post prior to posting to the page. (Read more at SocialTimes)
WhatsApp is launching video calling for Android, iPhone and Windows Phone users. In addition to the feature announcement, it shared it has 160 million monthly active users in its most popular market, India, where parent company Facebook has 155 million. (Read more Mashable)
Last July, Twitter announced that the NBA will be live streaming two original shows, and Twitter is now monetizing that content by opening up ad inventory for both shows. 63% of NBA fans look for NBA-related content on Twitter. (Read more at SocialTimes)
Snap Inc. secretly filed for an IPO, which has raised speculation of when that IPO will occur. Sources are reporting it could come as soon as March with a value of $20 billion to $25 billion. Facebook was valued at $81.2 billion when it filed. (Read more at Reuters)
Twitter is taking a cue from Snapchat and now has QR codes that link to users’ profiles, similar to Snapchodes. (Read more at The Verge)
Facebook added a new targeting option to custom audiences called “everyone who engaged with your page.” (Read more at SocialTimes)
Facebook’s Atlas ad platform is ending its ad-serving efforts and will shit its focus to measurement. Atlas has been shifting over to measurement campaigns over the last 18 months with clients including Airbnb and State Farm. Atlas was acquired by Facebook from Microsoft in 2013. (Read more at Atlas Solutions)
Facebook is rolling out better analytics for tracking Messenger bots. Bot makers can now track bot users’ age, gender, education, interests, country and language from the Facebook Analytics for Apps dashboard. They’ll also be able to see messages sent and received, messages blocked and the number of people who engage with the bot but are eventually transferred to a human. (Read more at Venturebeat)
Airbnb just launched Trips, which offers curated recommendations for activities, events and restaurants at specific destinations. It also includes the introduction of Airbnb Flights. This is a major shift for Airbnb, which has its sights on being a complete travel service. (Read more at Skift)